ONE FATEFUL EVENING IN early August of1974, we were at the
Rainbow with Mal, when his old pal (and boss) Ringo had shown up with fellow
drummer from the fabulously mod rock band, The Who, the undisputed duke of
debauchery, Mr. Keith Moon. We were all sitting down at a table in the room upstairs
called the Crow’s Nest. It was like a ship at sea with anchors, netting, and
other nautical decor. It even had a real ships bell, which one would ring out
for the arrival of pirate party time.
Mal, Ringo, Keith, and I
were singing oldies for hours and drinking round after round of Cognac and
orange juice. We sang everything, even instrumentals, but for e reason we kept
coming back to the Beach Boys song, Don't Worry Baby. Keith had a thing
about surf music. Whenever he was depressed or feeling bad he would always
crank up The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, The Ventures, or The Shadows (with Hank
Marvin and Cliff Richard). I was following Keith who had wandered behind
the walls and started banging on the drywall urging him not to do what I knew
he was about to do. “Please Keith, no, don't do that, Oh God!” but I knew he could
not help himself. If something needed destroying, he was the right man for the
job. He turned his left shoulder into a ramrod and bulldozed his way through
the drywall knocking down the interior wall landing on a paying customer. I
don't think Keith broke the lady’s arm, but he had done some major damage to
the room. “Oh, I'm terribly sorry for that, my good woman”, he said in his best
James Mason-like accent to the manager who was rolling his eyes knowing full
well the damages would be paid for, in fact the Rainbow (and many other
establishments) would profit greatly from Keith's faux pas'. Hotels and bars looked
forward to his rants of destruction.
We left the Rainbow that
night around three in the morning and didn’t get to sleep until four or five. Two
or three hours later the phone rang in the apartment in the Village. I got up
from my sleeping bag on the yellow carpeted floor and wearily answered the
call. It was Mal telling me that after the rollicking fun time he had last
night, Keith wanted to do a solo album. I was to wake the boys up and head down
to the Plant ASAP so I would have time to write charts for Don't Worry Baby,
the same song we were singing just hours earlier. I was in semi-shock when I
hung up the phone. Blair was non-responsive, so I tried to wake Stephen
having the same results. Now I know how the scarecrow felt in The Wizard Of
Oz when he tried to wake Dorothy up in the field of poppies. All I needed
was a little bit of snow, any kind of snow, and that wasn't likely at this hour
in the morning even in Los Angeles. I had to shake them both and nearly poured
water on their heads when I saw Blair stirring. Stephen sat up on the
couch. “Did you say we are doing an album, Jimmy?”
We all stumbled into a taxi and took it
down to the Record Plant and got there about 9 am. The song was easy to chart,
and copies were distributed among the various music stands out in the cavernous
studio C. One by one the musicians arrived. First was John Sebastian (Lovin'
Spoonful), who would sing the work vocal in his unmistakable soft baritone.
Next came Jim Keltner, the top studio drummer of his day followed by Danny
Kortchmar (Kootch) who had played guitar with the likes of James Taylor, Carole
King, Carly Simon, and Graham Nash, just to name a few. Then in walked Ringo
Starr followed by Harry Nillson, and members of the all-female band, Fanny.
It was after 10 am now and
the session had begun. Ringo and Jim Keltner were on drums, Kootch on guitar,
Sebastian singing in the isolation booth, Blair Aaronson on piano and on bass
was none other than myself. I could hardly believe I was playing bass with
Keith Moon, Jim Keltner and Ringo Starr and I wasn't really a bass player at
all. It's funny that if you google that record called Two Sides Of the Moon,
it says that my name was James Ed Haymer, and I was credited with playing
drums. It just goes to show you how wrong these sources can be and is one of
the main reason I wanted to write this down to set the record straight. I was
nervous but that energy kept me awake - that plus the gallon or two of coffee I
had ingested.
There I was with a Fender
bass in my hands with a handful of the best, if not most famous musicians in
the world. I felt like Wayne when he met Alice Cooper in Wayne's world (but
that movie wouldn't be out for another ten years) “I bow down to you and your
glorious rockdom.” After about four or five takes we walked back into the
control room and listened to the playback. I remember thinking how amazing it
sounded and wondered if everyone else in the room was thinking the same thing.
I didn't have to ask, the contented smiles on all the faces in the room told me
all I needed to know. Years later Jon Gries (Stephen’s younger brother who had
driven Keith’s Rolls Royce to Tower records to pick up a copy of Don’t Worry
Baby at the ripe-old age of fifteen), had run into John Sebastian. They began
to reminisce about the old days when Jon mentioned the time he was at the
Record Plant in ’74 during the first Keith Moon sessions. John Sebastian’s jaw
dropped. “Are you kidding? You were there? That session is renowned. It was
known by all the musicians as THE SESSION.
The next day it was time
to cut Teenage Idol and Blair was again behind the 88's but
unfortunately, I was left off this one. It was still a thrill to be in the
studio where I knew I was part of something huge, and my counsel was called
upon from time to time. The thick control room door opened and who would
walk in to overdub guitar? None other than the king of surf guitar himself, Mr.
Dick Dale. He played a gold Stratocaster with a gold metallic pickguard. With
his salt and pepper hair in a ponytail, he entered the studio wearing a white
parachute jumpsuit, (maybe he was going through an Elvis phase or something). It
wasn’t long before he was blistering his strings with reverberating penetration
as waves of brilliance emanated from his guitar. Bitchen and twitchen, to say
the least.
The best part about the
Plant, besides the fantastic ultramodern equipment, was the lounge. There was a
Fireball pinball machine that always had extra plays on it, right beside a coke
machine with ice cold bottles of Coors beer for only ten cents a pop. I mean
you could stay in there all day and be thoroughly wasted for less than a
dollar.
One day while Stephen was
behind the controls of Old Fireball, Steve Mariott walked in, took one look at Stephen,
and almost lost it. He said, “Brian, is that you?” Stephen did have a slight
resemblance to Brian Jones with his blonde straight hair in a Prince Valiant
cut. He went on and on about how sorry he was about something he must have said
to Brian in the past and kept apologizing to Stephen. It would have been laughable
if it weren’t so pathetically sad. What’s sadder still is in 1991 he died when
a fire, which was thought to be caused by a cigarette, swept through his 16th
century home in Arkesden, Essex.
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